I must achieve internal consistency.
Edmund HusserlRead
Experience by itself is not science.
Interpretation
Experience alone does not constitute scientific knowledge; it requires systematic interpretation and validation.
This quote by Edmund Husserl emphasizes the distinction between mere experience and the rigorous methodology of science. It suggests that while experiences can provide valuable insights, they must be analyzed and contextualized to achieve true scientific understanding. In essence, knowledge derived from experience must be subjected to verification and rational inquiry to be considered scientifically valid.
In practice
In a lecture on the philosophy of science, I used this quote to highlight the importance of rigorous methods in scientific inquiry.
I must achieve internal consistency.
I had to philosophize. Otherwise, I could not live in this world.
To every object there correspond an ideally closed system of truths that are true of it and, on the other hand, an ideal system of possible cognitive processes by virtue of which the object and the truths about it would be given to any cognitive subject.
We would be in a nasty position indeed if empirical science were the only kind of science possible.
Psychologically experienced consciousness is therefore no longer pure consciousness; construed Objectively in this way, consciousness itself becomes something transcendent, becomes an event in that spatial world which appears, by virtue of consciousness, to be transcendent.
If all consciousness is subject to essential laws in a manner similar to that in which spatial reality is subject to mathematical laws, then these essential laws will be of most fertile significance in investigating facts of the conscious life of human and brute animals.
We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.
When the prophet, a complacent fat man, Arrived at the mountain-top He cried: "Woe to my knowledge! I intended to see good white lands And bad black landsβ But the scene is grey.
One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.
The measure of a man is what he does with power.
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